SWNOVELS Chapter CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Van awoke to the sound of distant screams and the cold, hard stone of a cobbled street under his cheek. He sat up and scanned around for Dallas and Yukimi, they were nowhere to be seen.
His surroundings were Hellish. A cool wind was blowing the scent of stale blood into his nostrils as the cloudy sky above burned with an orange glow as if the clouds themselves were on fire. The air was thick with drifting smoke, limiting his depth of view. He squinted through the haze and found that he was in the middle of a long abandoned public square.
The surrounding buildings had decayed and split open like an infected wound on the landscape. A headless brass statue stood atop a marble podium, which had been entangled in thick, barbed vines. The word ‘Monster’ had been spray painted over the body of the statue, and it looked as though dried spit was clinging to it. Van called out to his absent companions. A muffled shout came from somewhere off to the far side of the square.
Van made his way toward the sound. He came across an upturned fruit stand and saw that Dallas was pinned beneath it. He heaved the mess of splintered wood off of him and helped him to his feet.
“Where are we?” asked Dallas, straightening up, “Is this Hell or something?”
“I hope not,” replied Van, “But I’d say there’s a fair chance it might be.”
“Where’s Yukimi?”
“Not a clue,” said Van looking around, “I only found you because you replied when I shouted.”
“I never heard you shout, I was just generally shouting for help.”
“Whatever,” said Van, “We’ve gotta find her though, I’ve got a feeling that letting the toughest one amongst us die is probably not the best thing to do. Plus, I think she might be a bit fucked up. She didn’t seem to take it well when she found out her sugar-daddy is a dick like we told her.”
Dallas nodded in agreement. They began to search the square and the dilapidated buildings that circled it. They didn’t see Yukimi, but they did find some old cooking knives in one of the buildings, so took the opportunity to arm themselves. Vanessa had said that it was a ‘fight’ for survival, so they agreed it was best to be armed as they were pretty sure the screams they kept hearing weren’t the result of hunger. The copious amounts of blood plastered on most surfaces did little to inspire hope that their time in this place would be peaceful either. The final building had been boarded up from the inside. Van began to rummage through the debris for something he could use to pry the windows open, but to no avail. He stood up. Dallas was gone.
Van scanned the area furiously, where the fuck- He didn’t have time to finish his thought as he had just seen that the building’s front door was now hanging wide open.
He took a deep breath and crept gingerly towards it. He advanced through the opening into the dark room beyond. He listened intently to the silence within. Suddenly a light shone upwards, casting its beam onto a pale, white face, inches in front of Van’s. He let out a girlish squeal and leapt back to the door, the blood draining from his skin as his bowels fell dangerously loose. The face collapsed into a hysterical chuckle. It was Dallas.
“You cock-juggling, piss-midget-ass, motherfucker!” Van screamed at Dallas whose laugh had now become a raspy cough.
“The-the-the fucking look on your face, fucking ‘priceless’,” He began laughing again.
Van raised his arm to clobber him, when a noise rendered them both nil by mouth. Van held a finger to his lips then signalled Dallas to follow him. They brandished their makeshift weapons and slinked to the doorway. Van held up three fingers… Two… One.
They dove through the doorway and spun 180 degrees, knives raised to strike. A hand grabbed each of their wrists and threw them both effortlessly to the ground. Yukimi had found them.
“Oh- Hey- Glad we found you,” said Van gasping for breath, “could you help me up now please, I’m pretty sure you took out a few vertebrae when you emasculated us.”
She helped them to their feet, but something was wrong. Yukimi always seemed a little distant, but she seemed completely closed off from the nightmare around her.
“Are you ok?” asked Van when he’d gotten his breath back.
“I’ll be fine,” she replied mechanically.
“Bullshit,” said Dallas, “you’re obviously feeling fucked up about the super-villain dude. We proper don’t mind if you wanna talk about it.”
She shook her head, “we need to find out where we are and how to escape. That’s all I care about right now.” She marched into the boarded up building and began rummaging around in the dark.
“I got a torch if you want it?” shouted Dallas from the doorway.
“Not necessary,” came Yukimi’s voice from deep in the room. There was a fizzle and the lights came on. “Come in and close the door.”
The two men swiftly entered the building and closed the door. The room looked ransacked; furniture had been torn apart to board the windows and a mess of papers and other Happy World related trash littered the floor. Van leaned down and grabbed a souvenir torch from the floor and pocketed it. The building was much smaller than the outside made it appear. It seemed out of place from the rest of the buildings they’d seen too. Unlike the others, which had all had a cartoonish feel, this looked more like a typical shared office space inside. A couple of desks that hadn’t been made into fortifications still had trinkets left by their former occupants; dust coated picture frames and random nick-nacks that had no doubt been left behind in a hurry. As they approached the back of the office, Van and Dallas found Yukimi sat on one of these desks, speed-reading through a pile of papers she’d collected from around her.
“Find anything useful?” asked Van.
“I’ve uncovered what might be an old tourist map of this ‘arena’ of sorts, but still nothing that says where this place is or what led to its current state-“ she stopped, holding a filthy sheet of paper in her hand. Her face was twisted with confusion.
“What?” asked Van, unsure if he even wanted to know what would give the stoic ‘Agent Sephtus’ that look on her face. She said nothing and instead handed the sheet to Van and Dallas, and continued with her reading. It was a matted piece of old takeaway wrapper from the Happy World burger-shack. The writing was scribbled in pencil and obscured with blood. It read;
The Skolarean’s beasts have been released
Mother Goose never gets her fill
If you find this don’t come looking for me
I’m already dead.
Just run.
-B.
As ambiguous as the note was, it still inspired dread. Van screwed it up and threw it away. He didn’t think Yukimi would want to discuss the possible meaning of ’The Skolarean’s beasts’ line, given her clear emotional denial. Instead he asked; “Can I take a look at the map? I’ll see if any of it matches up with the square out there.”
“You’re welcome to try but it is heavily damaged.”
She motioned to a folded sheet to her left and continued reading the ever decreasing pile beside her. Van took it over to a nearby desk and unfolded it. Yukimi hadn’t been kidding; several large holes had been burned into the paper and the heat had discoloured a lot of what remained. Van gave up immediately and began pacing the room, looking for anything useful. He lazily sifted through the papers that covered the floor, with his boot.
“You could show a little more enthusiasm, Van,” said Yukimi without looking up from the pile of papers which she had recently replenished. Van crouched down and sifted through the papers with his hands. As he skimmed his way through the discarded memos, two things became apparent to him, one; that someone called Darcy had been the office slut, and a filthy minded one at that, and, two; that the office must have been abandoned quite some time ago as paper had been pretty much completely phased out over a hundred years ago. He did manage to find a hammer though and decided this was a much more durable weapon than his flimsy kitchen knife.
“I think I found something,” called Dallas from across the room, “check it out.”
Yukimi and Van converged on him and stared at the large sheet of paper in his hands. It seemed to be a hand-drawn map. There was a Square off to one side that looked similar to the one they were in. Several areas of the map had been crossed out in red and various acronyms had been scrawled next to them. Every so often though, there were areas that had been circled in green. It was impossible to know just how accurate the map was, but it was a start.
After a brief discussion, our three heroes decided to begin checking the green circled areas and do their best to avoid the red crosses. They loaded up on everything that looked remotely usable, which wasn’t much. There were a few pieces of stationary that would serve as makeshift weapons should the need arise, but no food or water. This gave them less than 30 hours to find some before Van and Dallas would perish.
They made their way out of the square and onto a high street that the map said was called ‘Souvenir Boulevard’. None of the buildings here looked like they’d ever been stocked and many hadn’t even had their painting finished. The buildings were all designed to look cartoonish and ill-defined. The blood-spatter motif they encountered in the square appeared to be a running theme throughout the ‘arena’.
As they reached the end of the street, the lay of the land changed dramatically. The once urban environment gave way to a rural backdrop with quaint cottages scattered across rolling fields, as far as the eye could see. They would need to traverse this landscape to reach the green-circled food court on the other side. As they made their way through the fields, they noticed they were coming close to one of the red crosses and thought it best to investigate. Best to know what you’re up against after all. Van was the one who volunteered to investigate. It was a choice he would soon come to regret.
The building looked like a bombed out version of a Ginger bread cottage. The exterior had long since degraded, the metal support rods that held the concrete together were now clearly visible. The whole place was the architectural equivalent of an open sore, on an otherwise picturesque landscape. There appeared to have been a garden at some stage, but the entire area was now scorched and browned by dried blood. From inside came muffled screams, although faint there was no mistaking that these screams were that of pure fear and torture.
Van slowly crept up the blood smeared steps to the front door. His boots clung to the syrupy stains that coated each step, it was still quite fresh. The screams growing louder with each step. Something else was distinguishable now too, it was like laughter. No, surely not, it was like a goose honk mixed with a human voice and it was laughing through the screams. Van clutched his hammer, readying himself to strike at a moment’s notice. He carefully peered through the holes in the door that had originally held windows. He couldn’t see the source of the Hellish sounds; only a thick, oily trail of blood and bile that led from the front door to a room on the right. Van knew he probably didn’t want to know anymore, but sometimes you’ve just gotta pick that scab.
He crouched low and slid across to the front room window. Moving slowly, his heart pounding in his throat, he peaked at the window. What he saw within the house, would haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life…
In front of a cartoonish fireplace was a man in an oversized high chair. His wrists and neck were restrained and he was bleeding from his genitals. The nappy he was in had been fastened with a giant rusted safety pin that must have pierced quite deeply in to his tender parts. He wasn’t the one screaming though, he was being force fed by a giant anthropomorphic goose in an apron and bonnet. Near where the left side of its beak connected with the head was all kinds of fucked up. There were long, sharp teeth and a puss oozing gum line sticking out, contorting the side of its face into a nightmarish sneer. The apron it wore could have been mistaken for that of a butcher. Crimson stains streaked down it, a patchwork of suffering.
The Goose laughed manically as it shovelled what, at first glance, appeared to be some kind of flesh tape into the man’s mouth with a long wooden spoon as he choked on it. The tape though, was not tape at all, it was causing the screams.
Across the room from the reluctant eater was a man, whose hands were restrained above his head. Heavy bolts punctured his hands, keeping them together, the same had been done to his feet. He was stretched out on an old wooden butcher’s table, his stomach had been sliced open and his intestines were being pulled out like a hose. As agonising as this must have been, it wasn’t the source of the true horror. What was most disturbing to Van and entertaining to the goose was the fact that his intestines were being force fed to a captive man in the nappy.
Van dropped into a crouch, trying to process what he had just witnessed. His heart sat high in his throat and he was actually ‘glad’ to have too little in his stomach to create vomit. He slunk back to the others without saying a word, a blank expression on his face. He had gone pale. Yukimi turned to him, “what did you-“
“I don’t wanna talk about it!” Blurted Van, in a hushed shriek.
“But-“, she started again.
“Look, you don’t wanna know and I don’t ever want to talk about it, so drop it. All you need to know is that I’m pretty sure we’re in Hell and we should proceed as if that is the truth. Don’t look through that window. Let’s just get as far the FUCK away from here as we can, ok? OK…”
Van adjusted his grip on the hammer and continued along the path to the green circled area. The others followed suit, perplexed by the brief conversation that had just occurred.
They ventured on, silently, until they reached the outer perimeter of the food court. Or at least the outer perimeter of where the map said the food court should be. Before them stood a tangled but heavily fortified mess of hastily erected fences and walls which dwarfed the trio. The tops were coated in masses of razor-wire and wooden stakes.
They circled the makeshift fort, but saw no clear entry point. Their would-be cartographer had left no clue as to where the entrance was either. Just as all hope seemed lost a hushed voice came from overhead. They looked up and saw a smut-covered, green faced alien looking down at them. He was ‘stage whispering’ something to them that they couldn’t quite make out.
“WHAT?!” yelled Dallas. The alien pointed behind them. They turned and saw what he was looking at. The Goose had apparently left its ramshackle cottage and was heading right for them. Yukimi and Dallas stared at the odd creature that was rapidly picking up momentum. Van grabbed their wrists and pulled them back towards the fort.
“We’re getting in this place,” he said with a new found determination. He looked up and saw the terror in the alien’s eyes. “LET US THE FUCK IN, NOW!!!” he cried. The alien disappeared, it was just them and the goose monster now. They backed against the wall of the fort and raised their weapons. The goose was now running full-tilt towards them with a giant pair of scissors and a ravenous look in its eyes. The trio brandished their implements, ready for a battle. Then, the floor opened up and swallowed them.
They landed on their backs and looked up just in time to see the trapdoor over their heads sealing shut, as the goose plunged its scissor blades at the door. Only a single drop of bloody saliva made it in after them, and then, darkness.
As the trio laid motionless in the dark, their minds each wandered to different thoughts. Yukimi was thinking about her betrayal at the hands of the only person she had ever looked up to. Van was thinking about how hopeless things had become, ever since he lost D00D and the Bessie Fontaine. Dallas, on the other hand, was wondering where belly button fluff comes from. Regardless of what they were each thinking about, one thing was glaringly obvious to all of them in that moment; and that was how much a ten foot drop onto a stone floor hurts your back.
A large mechanical clanking noise filled the room as fire light began to spill in. The battered heroes craned their necks around and saw several torches being carried into the room. A young, blonde, human girl wearing a stained white dress came running towards them carrying a Happy World drinks pitcher and three miss-matched mugs in the shape of cartoon characters. She knelt by them, helping them to sit up and handing them each a mug. They sniffed at the liquid and all threw the contents away immediately. It was POP!!! Cola.
“It’s ok,” said the girl, “It’s just cola.”
“Where did you get it from?” asked Yukimi.
“From a supply drop,” replied the girl, “they drop supplies into hot zones once a week, to force us into danger zones. Actually the only good thing about being here is that we’re used to test the new drink flavours. Why?”
The trio looked at each other. “You might want to cease that course of action,” answered Yukimi.
The girl looked alarmed. One of the torch bearers walked over and put his hand on her shoulder, he whispered something into her ear. It was the green alien from the wall of the fort. He was wearing a drab robe that appeared to have been fashioned from a potato sack and an old electrical cord. The girl nodded and turned back to the three visitors;
“Do you know where you are?” she asked them.
“Not in the slightest,” replied Van, “we know it’s some kind of fight to the death, but that’s about it.” The torch bearers murmured amongst themselves.
“Well,” said the girl, “my name is Harmony and this place is where those who offend the Happy World credo are sent to die. Rich business men, from all over the Universe, bet on how long we will survive against the Nightmares.”
“Is that what was chasing us?” asked Dallas, “what the fuck are they?”
“They are mistakes,” continued Harmony, “Happy World used to make their slaves dress in costumes of the cartoon characters. But the suits got too hot and too many slaves dropped dead as a result. To avoid this, the park executives designed godless genetically engineered representations to take their place. Out there, are the failed experiments that were ‘defective’. They all went and lost their minds, so the execs thought they’d make the best gladiators to hunt down insubordinate slaves and customers. We call them The Nightmares, they mostly stick to specific areas and that’s where the supply drops land. They possess ungodly strength and are evil to the core. They don’t just kill you, they get a thrill from it. The people in charge messed with their neuro chemistry to make them love killing, at least, that’s what we were led to understand. The sin of our oppressors has truly brought about Hell.”
“Do you know where this place is?” asked Yukimi, taking the dark story in her stride.
Harmony shook her head, “we have no idea. Most of the planet’s history was lost when the first wave of slaves died, there’s still Old Bob, but I don’t think you’ll get much out of him. His mind isn’t what it used to be.”
“We have to try,” replied Yukimi, “if there’s anything that can get us off of this planet, we need to find it. Can you take us to him?”
“Well, I suppose but you should really get acclimated. Your odds of leaving here alive aren’t exactly great. Others have tried and failed.”
“All the same, I must insist we meet with this individual.”
Harmony agreed and the torch bearers helped the trio to their feet. They ached and their mobility was hindered, but they made their way out of the room and along an access tunnel, to a large fire door. They passed through and into an open space.
They were inside the walls of the fort. What had once been a collection of eateries was now a shanty town of random, weak looking creatures huddled around flaming trash cans. They were all clearly malnourished and dressed in tattered clothes, most of which carried a Happy World logo on them.
Harmony led them through the crowd and into an old burger restaurant. They passed the grease-stained tables and fake plants that filled the darkened fast food joint. Turning a corner, they found themselves stood before a dilapidated jungle-gym. Its once bright, playful, sponge-covered safety bars had faded and been partially torn away, some parts even appeared burned. The netting was ragged and looked more like spider webbing than safety equipment. The thing was huge though. It seemed to stretch on forever. Only a dim light could be seen in the depths of the soft-play labyrinth. A torch bearer offered his flaming staff to the trio.
“You know,” said Van, looking the man square in the eye, “It’s that kind of genius thinking that got this place fucked up in the first place.”
He pulled the souvenir torch from his pocket. The man withdrew his wooden fire hazard looked offended.
“Right. So, he’s in Evil’s day care boutique then I take it?” Van asked, turning to Harmony, “Fuckin’ marvellous. I remember a time when I could sleep in, now I have to climb into that bumper-bucket of bullshit, to find a lunatic who will either; know absolutely nothing, rape us, or; give us false information then rape us! IT’S NOT RIGHT! IT’S NOT FUCKING RIGHT! FUCK THIIIISSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!”
Van put his hands on his knees and caught his breath. Everyone was stood in shock at this sudden outburst. Dallas broke the silence; “you alright, mate?”
Van shot up and inhaled through his nostrils, loudly. “Yes thank you,” he said calmly, “just had to get that out. I’m good now.”
“Ok, well, I can see you’re still adjusting to all this,” said Harmony in a patronising tone, “so, when you’re finished talking to this poor soul, you should come to the central forecourt, there you can be assigned job roles. You want to receive, then you must also give.”
She smiled as she said the last part, she was either a complete dolt or a manipulative mastermind. Harmony then bowed to the trio and made her leave, the torch bearers following after her like ducklings that had imprinted on her at birth.
When they had left, Yukimi turned to her companions; “I fear that girl is hiding something.”
“Yeah,” agreed Dallas, “No one can be that nice and yet seem so ’cunty’ unless they’re up to something.”
“Look,” said Van, “We all agree that she’s a total cunt, so let’s just stick together until we can figure out a way to turn this to our advantage. But before all that, we’ve gotta go see a crazy old bastard, named Bob, and find out what the senile old fuck knows. So, are we doin’ this, or not?”
Being designed for children, the trio had to crouch and move onward in single file, as they made their way deeper into the bowels of the jungle-gym. Yukimi had taken the lead, with Van and Dallas following in that order. They snaked through the maze of cushioned scaffolding, heading toward the source of light. Progress was slow as the netting made distinguishing where corridors went, into an infuriating guessing game. They eventually gave up and used the kitchen knives they’d pillaged earlier, to cut a straight line toward the light.
They cut the final net-wall and found themselves in an empty ball pit the size of a small apartment. In the centre was a hunched silhouette, in front of a campfire.
“Do all these idiots think that using fire in this place is perfectly fine? I can see why none of them have escaped yet,” Van said as they approached the figure.
“Did you say ‘escape’?” Asked the voice of the silhouette, “I know a thing or two about that.”
The trio stood silently as the silhouette in front of the fire grew. The shadow turned and revealed a filthy, naked, old man with a long, grey beard and hair. The top of his head was bald and his body was virtually skeletal. His genitals were distractingly large, however, his testicles hanging halfway down his thigh and his pendulous member looked as if it had been gnawed on by a pack of chipmunks. He stretched out his arms toward them and slowly stumbled forwards.
“Let me look at you, weary travellers,” he said, putting his grime covered hands up to Van’s shoulders. He buried his face into his chest and inhaled deeply. “You know, for a young lady, with such a beautiful voice, you’re tits are non-existent.”
“Uh, she’s the chick,” said Van awkwardly pointing to Yukimi.
“Oh! Sorry about that,” replied Od Bob. He moved over to Yukimi and planted his hands on her chests, kneading her breasts. He showed no sign of stopping, so she grabbed his wrists. He looked up at her eyes, “Oh, hello there young lady, how can I help you?”
“Are you ‘Old Bob’?” asked Yukimi, still holding his wrists.
“Who? Oh, yes. I am he. Please, let us sit.”
Yukimi released his arms and they followed him over to the fire. They sat themselves around it and winced as Old Bob’s penis swung dangerously close to the flames. He squatted down with them. He picked up a water bottle that appeared to have been refilled with urine and drank from it. “Oh, excuse me, where are my manners?” he offered the bottle to the others, they politely refused. They hadn’t reached the piss-drinking stage, not yet anyway. He replaced the lid and set the bottle back down.
“Now then, what are we all doing here?” Old Bob asked.
“Well,” began Yukimi, “we need to know how to escape from here, so that we can save the Universe. We have around a week in which to accomplish this, but preferably less. You eluded that you may have information that we could use to do this.”
Bob looked her up and down, licking his pencil-thin lips. He let out a dry chuckle, “I know what you want, but it won’t do you no good. You aren’t the right ones.”
The trio looked at each other. “What do you mean?” asked Yukimi.
“Just look at yourselves,” he said, “you’re clean you’re wearing those fancy clothes. You don’t have it in you to make it. Only someone whose known the true suffering of fighting for your life while others take pleasure in it, have the drive it takes to get out of here. A slave like me is the only one with the drive, but my body would never make it. I’ve been a slave my whole life and I’ve been in here for the last 38 years.
“You’ll have that drive one day, but by then it’ll be too late for you too. Now, would anyone like a drink.” He held up the bottle again.
Yukimi took to her feet. “Thank you for your hospitality,” she said, “but we have to find someone that can point us in the right direction.”
“Huh,” replied Bob, “good luck with that, they wouldn’t tell you, even if they did know. They think they deserve to be here. That’s why they don’t talk to me, because I know they’re full of shit!”
“Wait,” said Van, “did you say that you’ve been a slave your entire life?” Bob nodded proudly. “Then you will know that I have known that drive.”
He lifted the bottom of his vest, exposing his stomach. There was a symbol branded into the flesh. The old man stared at it in stunned silence.
He looked up at Van’s face, “you escaped?!” he asked, incredulously.
“I did. Now will you please tell us how to leave this place?” asked Van, pulling his vest back down.
The old man nodded once more, “I will tell you” he answered, “but the others must wait outside.”
“I don’t suppose you have any water?” Dallas asked hopefully.
“Do you really think I’d be drinking my own piss if I did?” Retorted Bob. “Only the scout groups get water rations.”
“Oh,” replied Dallas, looking disappointed, “I guess I’ll ask the ‘cunt’ girl then.”
Yukimi and Dallas navigated their way out of the play area, leaving Van and Bob alone. Yukimi had left the hand drawn map with them in the hope that it might be accurately updated.
When Van finally emerged from the jungle-gym, Yukimi was just finishing explaining to Dallas where belly button fluff comes from. Van approached them, looking drained.
“Sorry about that, he took ages to explain everything and he kept getting mixed up. I’ve updated the map, here.”
He handed the map to Yukimi, who examined it before putting it into her pocket. “What is the marking on your sternum, and why did it make the old man change his mind?”
Van cradled his stomach, “Tell you what; if we get out of here alive, I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Very well,” she said, “I believe our next move should be to get something safe to drink and collect some more data on these ‘Nightmares’. I assume we will have to get close to them in order to escape?”
“Worse than that,” replied Van, “we have to go right through them. Look, get the map out for a minute and I’ll run you through it.”
Yukimi reached into her pocket and retrieved the map. She unfolded it and held it out in front of them. It was different; the green areas had all been crossed out and several red zones had been added. At least, there were more areas with crosses through them but, rather than being market in red, they were market in brown. Upon seeing these new marks, Yukimi and Dallas both gave Van a very disappointed look. He chose to ignore this and powered through;
“So, as you can gather, we’re in the only ‘safe zone’ that’s left. Now, he wasn’t very specific in his explanation, but there’s apparently some kind of emergency escape system here.” He pointed to a brown circle on the map that was nestled in the centre of a huge cluster of red zones. “I know it looks bleak and, well, it is. However, I think we can make it if we go through this bit, over here.” He directed their attention to one of the new brown crosses, which was a mile or two from their current location. “It’s a detour but a worth-while one. The nightmare that’s believed to be there, hasn’t been seen in years. From what the old fruit-cake told me, it sounds like this was a wolf version of some famous hunter, aaand, he had a small arsenal of guns. We’re gonna need to arm ourselves to the teeth if we’re gonna get through the cluster-fuck at the end.
“As for intel on who and what we’ll need to face to get through, we’ll need to be sneaky. The Old man said that the other slaves around here are getting a little ‘Lord of the flies’-esque and they don’t think that anyone sent here deserves to leave. That being the case it’ll be a Hell of a lot better if they don’t know what we’re up to.”
“Ok,” said Dallas, “What do we do if it turns out the old man is more bat-shit than he seemed, and this is all wrong?”
“Nothing we can do,” answered Van, “We just have to roll that dice, or, we could stay here to rot.”
“He’s right,” said Yukimi, “we must leave this place. As for the intelligence issue, it is not something I feel comfortable with, but needs what must and I am not going to stop until I get a chance to confront the Commander. Now we require a way past those walls.”
Van and Dallas looked at one another. Yukimi clearly used vengeance as her healing process.
Van smiled at her; “I might have a way we can get intel and get beyond those walls; We need ‘jobs’.”